The evil eyes

[religion described in a negative light - mild level bullying]

Monday: Maria’s hands were never idle. Myriam, her granddaughter, got up and started sniffing around in the kitchen. “Would you like some breakfast? I’ve baked some biscuits” Maria asked. Myriam gave her a tired smile. “Nana, why don’t you sleep at night, instead of baking? You know I’m just as happy with store bought biscuits?”

“Myriam, I know you like the biscuits and I like baking them, and that’s that!”

“Where are mum and dad?”

“They’re away for work. To London, this time.”

“They didn’t stay here long!” complained Myriam. 

“They know that you’re a big girl and that your Nana’s gonna look after you” replied Maria. “Anyway, they’re busy with work, you’re busy with school, and I’m busy cooking and looking after you. So, you’ll see, before we even know it it’ll be Saturday again and they’ll be back”.

Myriam started getting ready for school while Maria settled herself into her comfy chair in the kitchen, knitting some new garment with beautiful coloured wool.

It was the end of the school day. Myriam was feeling a bit lost, looking around for her friends so that they could walk home together. She didn’t see any of them. Sighing, she told herself that it was just a coincidence that she often couldn’t find them after school, they couldn’t possibly be ignoring her! She’d made an effort with her appearance, her hair was neatly combed and kept loose in soft, blonde curls, she was wearing her new red coat her parents had brought her from Milan last week, as well as some jewellery that made her look really grown up. She looked pretty and there was no reason for her to have to walk home alone… again.

Just as she reached the first corner near her school, she saw Mirko and his band jump out from the school’s back door, the one that led to the gym. Mirko was the head of a little band of bullies, five in total. He was tall, with short dark hair and hazelnut eyes, most of all he was confident and attractive. Also, he particularly disliked Myriam and let her know this any time he got a chance. Myriam didn’t quite see the other four boys as distinct individuals. To her they were just Mirko’s guard dogs, dogs that were now growling and menacingly moving in her direction.

“Hey, bitch!” Mirko addressed her “pretty coat, but you know carnival’s finished?” The other boys started laughing, they surrounded her and each spat on her. When she started to cry, Mirko deemed that their job was done, he called back his dogs, and left her to go home on her own and with her ruined coat, dejected.

Myriam got home soon after that, she tried to go and hide in her room as soon as she got in, but it was too late, Maria had already seen her. Not only had the old woman already taken in the despondent look on Myriam’s face and the filthy state of the new coat she’d just worn for the first time. She had been standing by the window and she had seen the whole thing. She was shaking with rage. “Nana it will be ok! I’m fine! Don’t get yourself worked up, it won’t do any good!”

Maria calmed down immediately, as if remembering something, once again the serene old lady she always was. “I’ll tell you what” she said “You go get yourself showered and dressed in some clean clothes, we’ll go to the ice cream parlour to cheer ourselves up, and while we are going there we can drop off that coat at the dry cleaners”

Myriam sighed. She wished that, instead of her 82 year old knitting-mad grandmother, she could have with her an older brother, or a boyfriend who would then go and wipe the smile off Mirko’s face and disband that stupid little gang of bullies. But of course she had no brother, no boyfriend, and she remembered that she was very lucky to have her Nana who would do anything for her… but wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Tuesday: Maria got a phone call from Myriam’s school. “What happened? is she ok?” Maria asked. “She is ok, yes. But she’s in trouble. Can you get her parents to come and pick her up, so we can also talk to them about Myriam’s behaviour?” Maria sighed: “Just send her home, you can tell me over the phone whatever happened. I know those horrible boys have been bullying her, it’s not a good reason to give her a detention, is it?”. 

“I’m sorry ma’m, her parents need to come and see this.” 

“Well, her parents are not here, I’ll come over to get her, and you’d better explain yourself!”

When Maria got to the school, she found the art teacher, the headmistress, and Myriam sitting in a classroom, in silence. Before them was a fairly large painting, clearly executed by someone with considerable skill. It represented a medieval style rendering of a demon, with a goat’s head and green eyes and four horns sticking out of its head. What was peculiar, and definitely not medieval, about this painting, is that the demon was wearing a school uniform, the one in use in Myriam’s school. Next to the tie, was a name-tag. It was really easy to read the name. “Mirko”.

Maria turned to Myriam: “Did you paint this?”

She nodded.

“Well my dear, I never knew you were so talented! Well done! I guess this is supposed to represent one of those bullies who have been making your life a misery! Well I’m glad you managed to express your feelings and communicate what you have been going through using the medium of art. Nothing would work better than such a clear visual message, so now your teachers and headmistress are listening to you! I’m so proud of you for managing this situation in such a creative and non-violent way!”

Both teachers looked at Maria in bewilderment. “You don’t understand! This is a catholic school! Your daughter has bullied another student and even gone as far as representing him as the Devil himself! We are seriously considering whether to expel her! You can’t praise her for such an ungodly painting, not to mention how degrading and demeaning all of this would be for the poor boy involved, if we allowed anybody to see this… doodle, that is!”

The old woman then turned to Myriam: “Have you explained to them what’s been happening?”

Myriam said: “Well, yes. And they don’t think it’s a problem. They tried to convince me that the boys bully me because they like me!”

Maria turned to the adults in the room: “Just a moment, so it is perfectly ok for boys to make a girl’s life a misery, to follow her, call her names, spit at her, humiliate her, because they like her? But she gets severely reprimanded for expressing all of this plight in art? Are you people even sane?”

The art teacher started looking a bit uneasy, but the headmistress composed her face into a huge PR smile and explained in a conciliatory tone: “You know as well as I do that boys will be boys… and in any case all of the instances you mention are of interactions between students that happened outside the school grounds and outside school hours. Even if we wanted to, there’s nothing we could do!”

The art teacher added: “Considering Myriam’s good conduct up to now, we’ll consider it a verbal warning and it will go no further. But be aware that if anything like this happens again, she will be expelled!”

Wednesday: 

“Nana, I don’t want to go back to school. Do I have to go? Can’t I change school to one where the teachers aren’t crazy and the students aren’t mean, or even be homeschooled?”

“No. You don’t have to go today. Today we perform the ritual against the bad eyes”

“Have you gone mad too, Nana?”

“The actions of the people around you don’t make any sense, I think someone has cast their evil eyes against you, otherwise people wouldn’t behave like that towards you.”

Myriam started looking at her old grandmother as if she was a total stranger. The one who wouldn’t hurt a fly was now wanting to perform some sort of magic. If drawing a demon was such a bad action, what would happen if anyone found out that this lovely, soft mannered and gently spoken woman, was actually trying to do magic? Would they call her a witch? Would they even arrest her?

In reality the ritual was quite simple and harmless, and it even gave Myriam an idea.

There were black-eyed peas which represented eyes, some of them were thrown into te fireplace and burned, some of them boiled in water and purified… all the while Maria whispered some incomprehensible chant. The whole thing only took about ten or fifteen minutes. Then Maria said: “We can go to sleep now and wait for the magic to take its course” tomorrow this nonsense will be gone.

Myriam went to her room and started thinking about Maria’s magic. She didn’t actually believe in magic, but she saw no harm in trying. The black-eyed peas represented the evil eyes that envied her. The idea that people’s malevolent gaze could be the source of her troubles didn’t seem so far fetched. So she decided that, symbolically, she would gift an evil eye to all of those who had slighted her.

She went to the nearest toy shop and bought a pack of white marbles, then she took them to her room and spent the rest of the day working at them with indelible markers, transforming them into eyes that had just come out of somebody’s socket. If they weren’t meant for revenge they would be a good halloween decoration.

Thursday: this day was very unusual for Myriam, because instead of spending it avoiding people and hoping that they would be civil to her, she was actually looking forward to people being rude or even actively bullying her, so that she could test the effectiveness of her evil eyes.

She started by putting them in people’s bags, Mirko’s, his underlings, the art teacher. Getting a few marbles into the headmistress’s bag was a bit trickier, but she accomplished it when she saw her leaving her bag unattended on a chair, for a minute, while she told off a student.

If people were slightly rude to her, they got one eye. The really nasty ones got two or more eyes. She didn’t know any magic words to say, but she hoped her trick would work. In fact it was working already. Nobody tormented her on her way home.

Friday: before going to school Myriam looked out of the window, curious to see what the weather was like, if there were many people about, trying to get a morning appraisal of traffic and pollution. Today, outside the school, was a police car. A policeman was talking to the headmistress. There were also lots of parents, many more than usual, nobody seemed to be going inside. Myriam waited to see what would unfold. After a few minutes she saw some TV crews arrive. Some parents were being interviewed. How odd.

She switched on the TV to see if the local news was on, a young reporter with a fake smile was describing the unusual circumstances at her school.

The police are treating it as a terrorist attack… the eye-marbles seem to be harmless, but they certainly symbolise a threat to this school and its population… the message seems to be “you are being watched”, but some are interpreting it as “you are going to go blind” which would signify that this is not the last attack the terrorists have planned…

The police are not sure of the reason why terrorists may want to target this school in particular, other than, of course, to diffuse terror…

The mayor has just given order for this school to be closed until further notice while the police investigates…

“Yes!!” thought Myriam. “The magic has worked!”